“Our world is filled with contradictions: technology affords us the opportunity to be the most connected we’ve ever been, yet we are the loneliest society that has lived. We proudly say we are a global, multicultural community, and yet there are barriers everywhere we turn. Our own identities are fractured, containing multitudes, yet struggling to create a single whole.”

Katie Yap’s Multitudes project is her response to these breakdowns in connection, using storytelling as a focal point to bring audiences, artists, composers, and collaborators together in shared, intimate music-making.

Each of the project’s four concerts was based on, and featured a new commission inspired by a poem from celebrated Australian poet Judith Wright’s book Birds. Each concert also explored different aspects of Yap’s kaleidoscopic artistic career, from baroque and electronics, to Chinese traditional music.

The series made a point of highlighting improvisation, collaboration, and subtly interrogating current socio-political issues. Oh and there’ll also be an album. Could one possibly bring together all these aspects cohesively?

Emily Sheppard and Katie Yap perform Night Herons. Photo © Darren James

Night Herons was the final concert of the four, and saw Yap share the stage...